February 7, 2025

These documents are influencing the DOGE-sphere’s agenda

Reports from the US Government Accountability Office on improper federal payments in recent years are circulating on X and elsewhere online, and they seem to be a big influence on Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and its supporters as the group pursues cost-cutting measures across the federal government.  The payment reports have been…

Technology

India central bank chief warns crypto will cause the next financial crisis if permitted to grow

December 21, 2022

The Indian central bank’s governor said on Wednesday that it’s not at war with crypto, but asserted that cryptocurrencies have no underlying fundamentals and their usage should be prohibited. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das told a room packed with banking executives and lawmakers that crypto has a huge inherent risk to the macroeconomic and stability of […]

India central bank chief warns crypto will cause the next financial crisis if permitted to grow by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Sequoia’s Carl Eschenbach, who led deals for Zoom and Snowflake, to run Workday as co-CEO

December 21, 2022

Carl Eschenbach, a longtime enterprise software executive who joined Sequoia Capital in 2016 and went on to lead a number of lucrative deals for the venture firm, is going back to an operating role. As the new co-CEO of Workday, Eschenbach will co-lead the enterprise cloud applications giant with its co-CEO, cofounder and company chair […]

Sequoia’s Carl Eschenbach, who led deals for Zoom and Snowflake, to run Workday as co-CEO by Connie Loizos originally published on TechCrunch

Tesla stock plunges as investors fear Twitter dramas, loss of China sales

December 20, 2022

Tesla shares fell 8.12% Tuesday after Wall Street downgraded price targets on the electric vehicle maker’s stock. Analysts fear that CEO Elon Musk is distracted by his hostile takeover and micromanagement of Twitter, and that China sales will be affected by the Chinese government allowing COVID-19 to spread after ending its stance on harsh restrictions. Tesla’s […]

Tesla stock plunges as investors fear Twitter dramas, loss of China sales by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

Humans at the center of effective digital defense

December 20, 2022
Digital information has become so ubiquitous that some scientists now refer to it as the fifth state of matter. User-generated content (UGC) is particularly prolific: in April 2022, people shared around 1.7 million pieces of content on Facebook, uploaded 500 hours’ worth of video to YouTube, and posted 347,000 tweets every minute. Much of this…

Is there a limit to human life?

December 20, 2022
People have always been fascinated with the question of human longevity. In this 1954 piece for Technology Review, James A. Tobey, author of more than a dozen books on public health, including Your Diet for Longer Life (1948), noted that despite a few frauds claiming to be older than 150, “the consensus of scientific opinion is that…

What’s next for crypto in 2023

December 20, 2022
Last month’s sudden implosion of the popular cryptocurrency exchange FTX has intensified a political war for the soul of crypto that was already raging.  In the coming year, we are likely to see that fight come to a head in US courtrooms and in Congress. The future of finance hangs in the balance. The battle…

The Download: home robot surveillance, and problematic AI text

December 20, 2022
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook? In the fall of 2020, gig workers in Venezuela posted a series of images to online forums where…